Automated banking machines are well known. A common type of automated banking machine used by consumers is an automated teller machine (“ATM”). ATMs enable customers to carry out banking transactions. Common banking transactions that may be carried out with ATMs include the dispensing of cash, the receipt of deposits, the transfer of finds between accounts, the payment of bills and account balance inquiries. The types of banking transactions a customer can carry out are determined by capabilities of the particular banking machine and the programming of the institution operating the machine. Other types of automated banking machines may allow customers to charge against accounts or to transfer funds. Other types of automated banking machines may print or dispense items of value such as coupons, tickets, wagering slips, vouchers, checks, food stamps, money orders, scrip or travelers checks. For purposes of this disclosure an automated banking machine or automated transaction machine shall encompass any device which carries out transactions including transfers of value.
ATM platforms often have the ability to perform different types of transaction functions depending on the types of software applications that are installed on the machine. Thus one ATM machine may be operatively configured with software to perform only certain banking transactions such as cash dispensing, while another ATM machine with the generally similar physical hardware can perform additional transactions such as bill payment by installing additional ATM software (and sometimes hardware) components.
ATMs often are manufactured with a limited set of pre-installed ATM software components with a standard set of default features. When additional features and capabilities for an existing ATM are desired, a service technician (“servicer”) may access a secure chest portion of the ATM or other area where a disk drive or other media reader is located, and install additional software components which provide the additional desired functionality for the ATM. Such additional software is often installed from one or more portable mediums such as floppy disks, CD-ROMs or a hard drive.
A problem with this approach is that it may be time consuming to install new software on ATMs. A further drawback for the provider of the software is that the entity installing the copies may not pay the license fees for all the copies installed.
Approaches to software protection are sometimes used for mass market software applications such as word processors and consumer operating systems. These systems allow the manufacturer to generate and distribute thousands of copies of the exact same CD-ROM image. Unless the user has one of the activation keys, the applications will not install. However, one major drawback of this software protection method is that each activation key will work with any of the thousands of copies of the CD-ROM. With the availability of inexpensive CD-ROM writers, unlimited pirated copies of such software can be created. As long as a single valid activation key is included with each pirated CD-ROM, all of the pirated copies are fully capable of being used to install the software. Although such unauthorized copying is illegal, it is nevertheless being done throughout the world for mass market consumer applications. Consequently there exists a need for a system and method of operationally adding the functions of software components to authorized ATMs that minimizes the opportunity for the additional software components to be operated on unauthorized ATMs.